Some products stay with a person long enough to outlive trends, algorithms, and the different versions of who they have been.

For Alix Earle, that product is Too Faced’s Better Than Sex Waterproof Mascara.

“You guys know my holy grail mascara – the Too Faced Better Than Sex Waterproof Mascara,” she has said plainly to her audience, the statement carrying the weight of repetition rather than promotion. “I’ve been using this since high school.”

Earle’s relationship to beauty has unfolded publicly, her routines filmed in bedrooms, hotel bathrooms, and the in between spaces that make up a life in motion. The mascara appears again and again, not introduced as something new, but as something that has stayed.

Part of its appeal is practical. “It’s the only thing that will hold a curl for me,” she explains. The formula grips the lash without dropping, keeping its shape through long nights, early mornings, and the constant presence of the camera.

There is also the reality of unpredictability. “This is good too for when I’m filming, just in case I cry – I need waterproof mascara.”

The statement lands somewhere between humor and honesty. Her audience watches her in real time, and the product becomes part of that transparency. It is not presented as fantasy. It is presented as function.

The mascara itself has remained visually unchanged, its rose gold tube instantly recognizable. Its hourglass brush separates and lifts, creating fullness without requiring precision. The result reads clearly on screen and in person, which is exactly why it continues to work in both environments.

Better Than Sex has existed through multiple eras of beauty culture, worn by makeup artists, celebrities, and now a generation that documents its routines as content. What changes is not the object, but the context around it.

Through Earle, the mascara becomes less about transformation and more about continuity. It is something she has carried forward, from high school to now, unchanged while everything else evolves.

Some products promise reinvention. Others simply remain, doing the same thing well for a very long time

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